KO and the QBOTF - JJ McCarthy

We want McCarthy to put a ton of pressure on Darnold. As much as I want to see SamIam do well for us, I want McCarthy to strive to be the best QB in the league. IMO...by moving off of Kirk and getting these guys (SamIam,McCarthy) in the QB room was a smart move. I hope it works out like I think it will.    

^Agree with Krauser that Seifert's article today on ESPN.com was very good - I highly recommend the read for everyone. It's a bit lengthy, but then again, so are some of my posts. 

And speaking of "longer" posts, here are some further comments/thoughts that I thought were interesting from that article:

- While I agree with Krauser that O'Connell was "scarred" from the Dwayne Haskins experiment, I wouldn't quite say that McCarthy "won't start early" as a rookie. Seifert's article seems to imply that O'Connell had setup a similar "plan" for Haskins as he currently has for McCarthy, but unlike the situation in Minnesota, he didn't have the final say and Washington Head Coach Jay Gruden deviated from the plan and started Haskins in Week 4 - "long before he was ready". O'Connell said McCarthy will start when "the comfort level that he has within our offense and his ability to then translate it to adverse situations and difficult aspects of playing quarterback in the NFL aren't magnified by inexperience", and went on to emphasize that McCarthy will definitely have growing pains and he's going to learn on the fly. Indeed, Seifert's writing stated this: "Assuming McCarthy doesn't win the starting job in training camp...", which leaved open the possibility that McCarthy could "be ready" (per O'Connell's timetable) early in his rookie season.

- Seifert points out the tales of two teams when it comes to how they told their QB1 of their plans to Draft a QB in Round 1 of the 2024 NFL Draft. He mentions the Falcons just didn't tell Cousins of their intention to Draft Penix #8 overall, while he wrote that O'Connell walked Sam Darnold through the team's plan to draft a QB in Rd 1. "I just felt it was very important for me to look him in the eye and say exactly the reality of this," O'Connell said. Per Seifert, "the conversation lasted 45 minutes. Darnold told O'Connell he appreciated the candor but that it wasn't necessary." Perhaps this is why O'Connell (and maybe even Kwesi) have gained a bit of respect from players - they're straight-shooters and clearly communicate their vision for the team.

- I don't remember reading about this, but Seifert mentions the while Kwesi/O'Connell didn't see any Rd 1 QB's in 2022 (their first year) to take, they did want to sign Brock Purdy as an UDFA. Seifert then linked to another one of his articles from Oct 2023 about this where it stated: "In 2022, the Vikings extended Cousins' contract and, according to multiple sources, heavily pursued a rookie quarterback from Iowa State named Brock Purdy in the final hours of the draft, hoping to sign him to a UDFA deal. Purdy told ESPN last week he was considering the 49ers, Houston Texans and Vikings if he had gone undrafted. The 49ers, however, swooped in and made Purdy the final selection of the seventh round." This sorta points out two things: 1) that teams really do use mid-to-late 7th Rd picks as a means to avoid UDFA bidding wars, and 2) that O'Connell's QB "assessment" abilities seem to be decent as Purdy has turned out to be a decent starting QB - which gives us hope for McCarthy. 

- The article does go into the QB plans that Kwesi/O'Connell laid out during their tenure, and while it mentions them not seeing anything in Rd 1 in 2022, wanting to sign Purdy as an UDFA, taking Hall in Rd 5 and then pursuing a Rd 1 QB in 2024, it makes no mention of any plans to move-up in 2023. Remember, it was reported by some reliable sources (Brett Kollman and Tyler Forness, I think) that the Vikings wanted to "sell the farm" to move up from the 23rd overall pick in 2023 to the Top 4 (possibly Arizona) for maybe Anthony Richardson. Seifert points out all the other scenarios that Kwesi/O'Connell contemplated throughout their tenure and how they arrives at selecting McCarthy in 2024, but the fact that he doesn't mention this is interesting. 

- Speaking of Anthony Richardson and any interest the Vikings may have had in trading up for him in 2023, I always thought it was interesting that O'Connell did have interest in a more "raw" QB prospect like Richardson from a passing standpoint. But Seifert pointed-out something early in the article when Kwesi was trying to determine if O'Connell was the right QB hire and mentioned this: "More than anything, however, O'Connell emphasized pragmatism. At one point during the conversation, O'Connell compared two quarterbacks. Deshaun Watson and Matthew Stafford, he said, approached the game from entirely different skill sets. But ultimately, he said, "they both get to first-and-10." A true draft assessment hinges on how many of its quarterbacks can get your offense to first-and-10, and what environment they need around them to expand their impact to championship levels." So basically, O'Connell looks at QB prospects through a lens of moving the chains on offense through any means necessary - whether it be via his legs (like Richardson), or his arm (which is what McCarthy is more known for). At the end of the day, a 1st down is a 1st down and that's all that matters. This is somewhat refreshing to hear because it does leave open the possibility that O'Connell is open to different approaches and adapting his offense to the QB's strengths: last season when Cousins went down and we turned to Dobbs, we all thought O'Connell would try to run a modified version of his offense tailored more around Dobbs' strengths of his legs, but that ultimately isn't what happened as it appeared Dobbs tried to run O'Connells's playbook of long-devleoping routes over the middle which resulted in bad throws/decisions more often than not after the initial Falcons/Saints wins. I'm hoping that O'Connell truly is more adaptable. 

- I loved reading about the evaluation process O'Connell and the entire team took with the QB prospects - from having them "install" a small portion of the Vikings offensive playbook and run it, to having them choose their favorite restaurant and then how they interacted with the players that didn't know the playbook. We knew the Vikings "brass" did a thorough evaluation process and left no stone unturned so this isn't exactly anything new, but Seifert's article provides more color and depth to the specifics of the evaluation that fans don't normally get. 

- You get the sense from the quotes Seifert obtained from the veteran players like Harrison Smith and Harrison Phillips that they respect the McCarthy selection, the challenges in 2024 as they "transition" and the future direction of the team. Phillips, in particular, had a nice quote: "and in Year 7, I probably have less years in front of me than behind me, so my window to win a Super Bowl is narrowing. But I'm extremely optimistic about the moves they've made". You get the sense that if the players feel that they are moving in the best direction this year - even if they don't win a whole bunch of games - that they are "on board" for this next "window". And it's entirely possible that players like Harrison Phillips would like to be back to see this next window through. 

I'd chalk the Hall pick up to hedging their bets. They clearly targeted this past draft as their place to get their QBOTF.

Hall I think was an example of them learning from mistakes. If they truly were interested in Purdy ans miscalculated getting him as a UDFA, then I think Hall is their correction to that mistake. They saw a guy they liked and thought has some potential. Why not grab him as a just in case? You can bring him in using a late pick, cheap, they can work with him and see what shakes out.

I think that's a good thing, they weren't putting all their eggs into one 2024 first round QB to be picked basket. That's the real sin of the Ponder pick. Speilman put all the eggs in that basket and didn't hedge his bets. They could have drafted Russell Wilson, Nick Foles or Kirk Cousins as mid round picks in 2012 as insurance in case Ponder failed.

Contrast that with Laquan Treadwell. He flamed out, but it hardly gets mentioned. That's because they hit on Diggs and Theilen so it didn't really hurt because Diggs and Theilen covered the hole that should have been there.

I'll second that... I had to chuckle though at Cousins driving his family to Atlanta and stopping and visiting Smith... dude is too cheap to buy plane tickets lol

But my issue is that with the way things are looking, Hall is being sidelined and potentially going to be axed as the focus is on McCarthy and Mullens is the trusted backup - and given how almost zero 5th round QBs ever show they are legit in their rookie year, it was unreasonable to think Hall would be a known quantity by this point. Hall wasn't going to prevent McCarthy from being taken, so if in the 1% scenario that Hall is legit and becomes the franchise QB, well now you basically have to trade McCarthy away.


In a vacuum that is a logical opinion, but I don't believe it works in practice. These QBs need multiple years of development, and given many teams carry proven (or shaky) veteran backups, then there isn't room on the roster to draft one per year unless you are giving up on them very fast. Jaren Hall was always going to be a multi-year project given him translating his game from the fakey BYU offense, and if they go with Darnold-JJ-Mullens at QB then what was the point? Even the Day 3 QBs who pan out like Kirk Cousins usually have rough first games / first seasons / or even first couple seasons before becoming competent starters.

Once again, this is given the context that Hall is being given zero chance to pass up Mullens or McCarthy. If they do end up moving Mullens and keeping Hall, then I will readjust these comments.

I think there's value in keeping Mullens. Hall has shown nothing to this point. If he has a good camp and preseason that could change my opinion but idk how many reps he will even get with the 3 QBs ahead of him